Patriarchal Palestine eBook

Besides the names of Jacob-el and Joseph-el, Mr. Pinches
has met with other distinctively Hebrew names, like
Abdiel, in deeds drawn up in the time of the dynasty
to which Khammurabi belonged. There were therefore
Hebrews—­or at least a Hebrew-speaking population—­living
in Babylonia at the period to which the Old Testament
assigns the lifetime of Abraham. But this is
not all. As I pointed out five years ago, the
name of Khammurabi himself, like those of the rest
of the dynasty of which he was a member, are not Babylonian
but South Arabian. The words with which they
are compounded, and the divine names which they contain,
do not belong to the Assyrian and Babylonian language,
and there is a cuneiform tablet in which they are
given with their Assyrian translations. The dynasty
must have had close relations with South Arabia.
This, however, is not the most interesting part of
the matter. The names are not South Arabian only,
they are Hebrew as well. That of Khammu-rabi,
for instance, is compounded with the name of the god
’Am, which is written ’Ammi in the name
of his descendant Ammi-zaduqa, and ’Am or ’Ammi
characterizes not only South Arabia, but the Hebrew-speaking
lands as well. We need only mention names like
Ammi-nadab or Ben-Ammi in illustration of the fact.
Equally Hebrew and South Arabian is zaduqa
or zadoq; but it was a word unknown to the Assyrian
language of Babylonia.

When Abraham therefore was born in Ur of the Chaldees,
a dynasty was ruling there which was not of Babylonian
origin, but belonged to a race which was at once Hebrew
and South Arabian. The contract tablets prove
that a population with similar characteristics was
living under them in the country. Could there
be a more remarkable confirmation of the statements
which we find in the tenth chapter of Genesis?
There we read that “unto Eber were born two
sons: the name of the one was Peleg,” the
ancestor of the Hebrews, while the name of the other
was Joktan, the ancestor of the tribes of South Arabia.
The parallelism between the Biblical account and the
latest discovery of archaeological science is thus
complete, and makes it impossible to believe that the
Biblical narrative would have been compiled in Palestine
at the late date to which our modern “critics”
would assign it. All recollection of the facts
embodied in it would then have long passed away.

Even while I write Prof. Hommel is announcing
fresh discoveries which bear on the early history
of the Book of Genesis. Cuneiform tablets have
turned up from which we gather that centuries before
the age of Abraham, a king of Ur, Ine-Sin by name,
had not only overrun Elam, but had also conquered
Simurru, the Zemar of Gen. x. 18, in the land of Phoenicia.
A daughter of the same king or of one of his immediate
successors, was high-priestess both of Elam and of
Markhas or Mer’ash in Northern Syria, while
Kimas or Northern Arabia was overrun by the Babylonian
arms. Proofs consequently are multiplying of